'Will of the Voters' Recognized By Holmdel Charter Study Commission

HOLMDEL, NJ — Speaking for himself and other members of the Holmdel Charter Study Commission that recommended a change to nonpartisan elections, Chairman Kin Gee said "The voters ultimately have the final decision, and, based on the unofficial results, they chose not to move forward."

In a statement signed Thursday with commission members Janet Berk, Gerald Buffalino and C. Zachary Gilstein, Gee said "While we believe that the recommendations we put forth as the Holmdel Charter Study Commission would have made Holmdel an even better town with more power to the voters, we recognize that our role was only to put forth a recommendation."

As of Thursday, the Monmouth County Board of Elections reported a total of 2,069 votes were cast in favor of change while 2,518 votes were cast against change. The "no" votes prevailed in each district in in-person voting.

Mail-in votes as of Thursday were in favor of change, 698 to 461, and more returns may come in to the county, which has six days after the election to record mail-in returns. Until all mail-in votes have been counted the results are not official.

Voter turnout as of Thursday shows 32.7 percent of 14,111 registered voters cast votes.

The Charter Study Commission's statement said the commission understood "there would be strong opposition driven by the Republican Party Boss (a reference to Monmouth County Republican Chairman Shaun Golden) and his Holmdel surrogates, and certainly, they pulled out all the stops, even soliciting the recent New Jersey governor candidate to advocate against our recommendations," the statement continued.

"Indeed, this supports one of the main reasons we put forth the recommendation for non-partisan elections. We need to have less influence by outside party bosses in our local governance. Unfortunately, machine politics prevailed here," the statement said.

Gee reiterated a comment he made after Tuesday's election regarding the distribution of certain misleading mailers: "We believe it was also unfortunate that the opposition chose to campaign on many outright lies and innuendoes, such as that this would bring a king-like mayor with a $100,000 salary or somehow turn our town into a large/poor inner city-like municipality. Our voters deserve better than this."

On Tuesday, Holmdel resident Christian DiMare, who had become the spokesperson for the Save Holmdel organization that opposed the change in government, said in response to the defeat of the proposal that "People wanted to keep Holmdel Holmdel." He said that he heard from residents, particularly on the Save Holmdel Facebook site, that political divisions in town can be solved within the current partisan voting system and did not require a major change.

But Gee said he was heartened by the turnout. "It was great to see that a large portion of the town came out to vote. Concerns that there would be a dismal turnout were unfounded.

"We hope that this process has increased voters' understanding of the influence of the party line, which is driven by the county party boss, and that voters will make more open, informed decisions based on the merits of what candidates will do for Holmdel rather than just voting the party line.

"We remain confident that Holmdel will continue to flourish as the beautiful town that it has always been," the statement closes.